My Solution for When The Garden Isn’t Growing
In my brand new garden, with my brand new raised bed, and my brand new soil from the bulk landscape company, I have brand new plants. And for a month and a half nothing grew. Tiny seedlings, and a few sprouts from seeds were all there, but on pause. I thought some heat was keeping water from making an impact as some plants were yellowing, but they didn’t seem brittle or fragile, just … not growing.
I talked to my Godmother (my go-to) and she recommended blood meal for nitrogen. That boosts the chlorophyll in the plant and gives it energy to grow. Hence, why mine were yellow – lacking that green chlorophyll.
I also then a few days later decided I would fertilize with a fish fertilizer as well as add worm castings to beef up the soil. Three different approaches that I could use to amend the soil and nourish the plants. Fixing soil after plants are already in it is not ideal, however I am THRILLED at the results. In just 48 hours I had deeper greener leaves, more growth and a better vegetable garden.
If your garden seems to just not be growing, with plants yellowing, I have a great recipe for you! Here is exactly what I did:
Day 1: In the early evening, apply blood meal in recommended amount around the base of plants and very gently rake into the soil without disturbing any roots. Water your plants.
Day 3: In the early evening, fertilize with AgroThrive (fish fertilizer) all purpose fertilizer. Dilute as recommended. No need to water if you have already, but definitely water a bit more if you haven’t.
Day 4: Any time of day, add worm castings to topsoil. I dumped three bags of castings onto my bed (it’s a big bed) and again, gently used my fingers to comb it into that top layer of soil, watering afterwards.
This approach made sense to me because my plants needed a lot of nitrogen, but also some other nutrients too. It became clear that the soil I got needed to be amended, which I didn’t do. Note to self, ALWAYS amend. The blood meal and fertilizer added a big boost to the plants, but the worm castings are another, and less invasive approach to nourishing the soil in a way that is organic and transformative.
I will need to continue to fertilize using my all-purpose fertilizer, and should be good just using that regularly (every 2-3 weeks).